Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

R Topcor and RE Auto-Topcor 300mm f/5.6

Topcon · Exakta · 1957

via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: R Topcor 300mm f/5.6 · R Topcor 300mm f5.6 · R Topcor 300mm F5.6 · R Topcor 30cm f/5.6 · R Topcor 30cm f5.6 · R Topcor 30cm F5.6 · R.Topcor 30cm f5.6 · R.Topcor 30cm f/5.6 · R.Topcor 300mm f5.6 · R.Topcor 300mm f/5.6 · R-Topcor 300mm f5.6 · R-Topcor 30cm f5.6 · R.Topcor 1:5.6 f=30cm · R Topcor 1:5.6 30cm · R Topcor 5.6/300 · Topcor 300mm f5.6 · Topcor 300mm f/5.6 · Topcor 30cm f5.6 · Topcor 30cm f/5.6 · Topcon R Topcor 300mm f5.6 · Topcon R.Topcor 30cm f5.6 · Topcon 30cm f5.6 R.Topcor · Tokyo Kogaku R Topcor 300mm f5.6 · Tokyo Kogaku R.Topcor 30cm f5.6 · RE Auto-Topcor 300mm f/5.6 · RE Auto-Topcor 300mm f5.6 · RE Auto-Topcor 300mm F5.6 · RE Auto Topcor 300mm f5.6 · RE Auto Topcor 300mm f/5.6 · RE.Auto-Topcor 300mm f5.6 · RE.Auto-Topcor 1:5.6 f=300mm · RE Auto-Topcor 1:5.6 300mm · RE Auto-Topcor 5.6/300 · RE Auto Topcor 30cm f5.6 · RE-Auto Topcor 300mm f5.6 · Topcon RE Auto-Topcor 300mm f5.6 · Topcon RE Auto Topcor 300mm f/5.6 · Topcon RE 300mm f5.6 · Topcon RE 300mm f/5.6 · Topcon RE Topcor 300mm f5.6 · Topcon Auto Topcor 300mm f5.6 · Topcon Auto-Topcor 300mm f/5.6 · Auto-Topcor 300mm f5.6 · Auto Topcor 300mm f/5.6 · Tokyo Kogaku RE Auto-Topcor 300mm f5.6 · Beseler Topcon RE Auto-Topcor 300mm f5.6 · Rトプコール 300mm F5.6 · Rトプコール 30cm F5.6 · R トプコール 300mm F5.6 · トプコール 300mm F5.6 · トプコール 30cm F5.6 · トプコン Rトプコール 300mm F5.6 · トプコン R.Topcor 30cm F5.6 · REオートトプコール 300mm F5.6 · RE オートトプコール 300mm F5.6 · REオート トプコール 300mm F5.6 · オートトプコール 300mm F5.6 · トプコン REオートトプコール 300mm F5.6 · トプコン RE Auto-Topcor 300mm F5.6 · トプコン RE 300mm F5.6

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
R.Topcor 1:5.6 f=30cm (preset) Exakta 1957 — —
RE Auto-Topcor 300mm f/5.6 Exakta 1972 — —
  1. One optical design, two versions. Topcon Club's English text: 'The RE Auto Topcor lens has the same optical design as the R Topcor, but was redesigned with automatic diaphragm.' Its Japanese text says the basic lens construction is the same, and that the two share the telescoping hood and differ in the automatic diaphragm and in coating: the RE Auto-Topcor, from 1972 onwards, renders noticeably clearer because of improved coating. The Maxifiche gives 4 elements, 8°, 4.5 m and 62 mm filters for each. Paillard gives the same for the R, and 62 mm and 15 ft for the RE Auto, leaving its element count and angle blank; the RE300/RE200 book gives the RE Auto 4 elements and 8°. Weight: Paillard gives 740 g for the R and 750 g for the RE Auto, and the Maxifiche and the RE300/RE200 book 750 g for the RE Auto; the family figure is the R's 740 g.
  2. A 300mm-engraved R Topcor. The Maxifiche says the R Topcor series was marked in centimetres until about 1970, and the lens was still offered in the mid-1970s Paillard catalogue as the 'R Topcor 300mm f/5.6'. That suggests a late copy engraved 300mm, but no photograph or description of one has been found, so it is not listed as a variant. A seller's title that says 300mm is not evidence of the engraving.
  3. Smallest aperture. The Maxifiche gives f/5.6–22 for both the R Topcor and the RE Auto-Topcor, and the RE300/RE200 book 5.6–22 for the RE Auto, which is the family figure set here. The Kamerastore copy of the R Topcor has an aperture ring and depth-of-field scale that both run to 32, so the preset version goes to f/32 at least on that copy. Paillard gives no smallest aperture.
  4. R Topcor launch date. Topcon Club's page on the R says the 300mm f/5.6 was among the preset R Topcors that appeared with the Topcon R, which was announced in December 1957. Its lens page says the 300mm f/5.6 came out a little after the R, together with the 90mm. The Maxifiche dates the R Topcor series from 1957. The end date is open: Topcon Club says it was made until about the Super D (1972), and Paillard was still listing it in the mid-1970s.
  5. RE Auto-Topcor launch date. Topcon Club's lens page says it was a late lens: the Japanese text calls it a lens of 1972 onward (1972年以降のレンズ), the English text 'about 1972'. Its article on the RE Auto-Topcor 500mm says that after the 200mm f/5.6 of 1965 an automatic 300mm was expected next, but the 500mm and the 28mm came first in 1967 and the old R Topcor 300mm f/5.6 stayed on sale; the automatic 300mm followed 'a little later'. English Wikipedia's Topcon RE Super lens list gives 'introduced 1965' with no specific citation. This page follows Topcon Club.
  6. RE Auto-Topcor end date. Topcon Club says the lens quietly disappeared when the N-series lenses arrived (1977) and was no longer in catalogues of about 1980. The RE300/RE200 instruction book, of 1977–78, still lists it in its table of Topcor lenses. The Maxifiche dates the RE Auto-Topcor series as a whole 1963–1976, without a date for this lens. No final year is set.
  7. Rarity and price. Topcon Club says the R Topcor was long-lived and is plentiful used, while RE Auto-Topcor production was small, because the lens came out when Topcon camera output was falling, and it rarely appears on the used market. Its two language versions disagree on price: the Japanese text says the RE Auto is probably not much dearer than the R Topcor because collectors overlook it; the English text says it is much more expensive than the R model. Both are kept.
  8. Topcon R (1957). R Topcor: the Maxifiche says the R's bayonet has no coupling of any kind and the body has no meter. The lens is a manual preset lens and needs neither, so it works fully, with a hand-held meter. RE Auto-Topcor: Topcon Club states that the R body has no automatic-diaphragm mechanism at all; it lived in the semi-automatic lenses of that camera. The RE Auto-Topcor fits the R's Exakta-type bayonet and focuses, but no source describes how its diaphragm is closed on an R, which lacks the body lever that closes it. The link is kept with that limit.
  9. Automatic R (RII), RIII and RS (1960–63). From the RII the body has the internal lever that closes an automatic diaphragm (Topcon Club, Maxifiche); it does nothing on the preset R Topcor, and it is the mechanism an automatic diaphragm such as the RE Auto-Topcor's needs. None of these bodies meters through the lens: the RIII's clip-on selenium meter and the RS's clip-on CdS meter are coupled to the shutter speeds, not to the lens (Maxifiche), so they can be used with the R Topcor's aperture set by hand, and the RE Auto's meter coupling does nothing on them. Topcon Club notes that many RS bodies are found with RE Auto-Topcors fitted. No source describes the RE Auto 300mm on these bodies specifically.
  10. ⁰ RE Super, Super D, Super DM and RE-2. R Topcor: Paillard describes the lens as 'designed for stop-down exposure measurement' with a preset diaphragm, so the TTL meter of these bodies is read with the lens stopped down by hand, not at full aperture. RE Auto-Topcor: full-aperture TTL metering (Maxifiche: every RE Auto-Topcor focuses and meters at full aperture; Paillard: the lens 'focuses and makes exposure measurements at full aperture'). Topcon Club photographs the RE Auto on a Super D.
  11. ¹ RE200 and RE300 (1977–78). These use the RE mount of the RE Super, with open-aperture TTL metering and a three-LED display (Topcon Club). Their instruction book lists the RE Auto-Topcor 300mm f/5.6 among the lenses for them, with automatic diaphragm and full-aperture metering. Its lens table lists the preset R Topcor 300mm f/2.8 with stop-down metering, but not the R Topcor 300mm f/5.6, so stop-down use of the preset version is expected but not stated. The links are kept.
  12. ² Ihagee Exakta bodies. The Maxifiche calls the R's mount a fully compatible Exakta bayonet and says Exakta lenses with plain or manual preset diaphragms mount on Topcons without difficulty; it covers Exakta lenses on Topcon bodies only. Topcon Club notes that Topcon put its release on the opposite side to Exakta, so lenses worked by an external preset or release arm lose that function when swapped. The R Topcor has no arm, but no source describes it on an Ihagee Exakta. No source says whether the RE Auto-Topcor's diaphragm can be worked on an Ihagee Exakta, so no claim is made. The Maxifiche also warns that the F Auto-Topcors of 1960–62 must not be used on RE bodies because their coupling finger turns the other way; that warning does not concern either version of this lens.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • R Topcor, with no AUTO, is the manual preset version: two diaphragm rings, a preset ring and a stop-down ring, and far more common. RE Auto-Topcor is the automatic version: one aperture ring, no preset ring, and it couples to the RE bodies' open-aperture meter. The two share the optics, size and hood. Sellers often write only 'Topcon 300mm f5.6'; the front ring settles it
  • f/5.6 and about 740–750 g; the R Topcor 300mm f/2.8 of the same years is an f/2.8 of about 3.3 kg with a filter slot in the barrel, and the RE Auto-Topcor 500mm f/5.6 is a 2.1 kg lens with a tripod collar
  • Topcon's Exakta-type (RE) bayonet. Not the UV mount of the leaf-shutter Topcons, not a Topcor for Leica screw mount, and not an AM Topcor for Pentax K

R.Topcor 1:5.6 f=30cm (preset):

  • Front ring engraved R.Topcor 1:5.6 f=30cm, with the serial number and Tokyo Kogaku Japan on the same ring (Kamerastore copy 701593)
  • Black barrel with a long built-in hood that slides forward over the front element, a broad knurled focusing grip and a small tripod block near the mount (Kamerastore photographs)
  • Aperture ring marked 5.6, 8, 11, 16, 22, 32; depth-of-field scale to 32; distance scale to 4.5 m / 15 ft with a red R infrared index (Kamerastore photographs)
  • Two rings for the diaphragm: a preset ring and a stop-down ring
  • Plain Exakta-type bayonet at the rear with no automatic-diaphragm lever or plunger

RE Auto-Topcor 300mm f/5.6:

  • RE Auto-Topcor on the front ring, not R Topcor or R.Topcor: the engraving is the quickest way to tell it from the much commoner preset lens of the same focal length and aperture
  • Black barrel with a long built-in hood that telescopes forward over the front element (Topcon Club calls the hood pull-out; Paillard and the RE200/RE300 manual call it telescoping)
  • A single aperture ring, 5.6 to 22, and no preset ring: the diaphragm stays open for viewing and is closed by the body at the moment of exposure
  • 62 mm front filter thread; distance scale to 4.5 m / 15 ft

Specifications

Construction
4 elements
Aperture range
f/5.6–f/22
Min. focus
4.5 m
Weight
740 g
Filter
62 mm
Years manufactured
1957
Country
Japan
Coating
Single-coated on both versions. Topcon Club: the RE Auto-Topcor is better coated than the R Topcor it replaced, and the improved coating gives it clearly crisper rendering; both lenses, being mono-coated, struggle against the light
Original price
R Topcor: US$269.25 list with built-in hood and leather case, catalogue no. 80650. RE Auto-Topcor: US$299.15 list with built-in hood and leather case, catalogue no. 80610. Both from Paillard Incorporated's undated US Topcon catalogue, which also lists the Super DM and IC-1, so mid-1970s; neither is a launch price. No Japanese launch price found.

What reviewers say

No reviews aggregated yet — this family is still in the research queue. Written one? We'd love to index it.

History

Tokyo Kogaku made one 300mm f/5.6 optical design for its focal-plane SLRs and sold it in two versions. The R Topcor 30cm f/5.6 is the preset lens, the slower of the two 300mm lenses offered for the first Topcon R of 1957. The RE Auto-Topcor 300mm f/5.6 of about 1972 is the same lens with an automatic diaphragm. Topcon Club, the Japanese collectors’ site, says in its English text that the RE Auto “has the same optical design as the R Topcor, but was redesigned with automatic diaphragm”; its Japanese text says the basic construction is the same. Both have four elements (Paillard, Maxifiche), an 8° angle of view, 62 mm filters, focusing to 4.5 m (15 ft), and a hood built into the barrel that slides forward over the front element.

Topcon Club says the R arrived with two semi-automatic Auto-Topcors and a set of preset R Topcors of 90, 135, 200 and 300mm, with a fast and a slow version of the 135mm and the 300mm. The fast 300mm was the 3.3 kg R Topcor 300mm f/2.8. This f/5.6 was the one most people could carry, at 740 g. Paillard, Topcon’s US distributor in the 1970s, sold it as a “short, lightweight optic” that was “very easy to hand hold”. Topcon Club’s lens page says it came out a little after the R, together with the 90mm, while its page on the R lists it among the launch lenses. The lens page adds that it stayed in production for a long time, to about the time of the Super D of 1972. Paillard still listed it in the mid-1970s alongside the Super DM. The copies seen read R.Topcor 1:5.6 f=30cm on the front ring, with the serial number and Tokyo Kogaku Japan. The Maxifiche says the R Topcors were marked in centimetres until about 1970, so a late copy may read 300mm, but none has been seen.

The automatic version arrived late. Topcon Club’s Japanese text calls it a lens of 1972 onward, its English text “about 1972”, and its article on the 500mm explains the delay. After the RE Auto 200mm f/5.6 of 1965 an automatic 300mm was the obvious next step, but the 500mm and the 28mm came first in 1967, and the old preset 300mm simply stayed on sale. English Wikipedia’s lens list gives 1965 instead, without a specific source. The RE300/RE200 instruction book of 1977–78 still lists the RE Auto. Topcon Club says it then disappeared quietly as the N-series lenses came in, and was gone from catalogues by about 1980. It came out just as Topcon’s camera output was falling, so few were made and it rarely appears on the used market. The copy Topcon Club photographs is black, mounted on a black Super D, as is the one in Paillard’s catalogue, and that fits its dating: Topcon Club says the Topcor lenses went over to black barrels step by step in the Super D years. Paillard called it a “6 power automatic telephoto lens” and listed it at US$299.15 with hood and case, against US$269.25 for the preset R Topcor; it weighs 750 g. Topcon Club’s Japanese text says the improved coating gives the RE Auto clearly crisper rendering than the R Topcor, while warning that both are single-coated and struggle against the light. On price its two language versions disagree. The Japanese text thinks collectors overlook the RE Auto, so it costs little more than the R Topcor. The English text says it is much more expensive.

The two versions behave differently on the bodies. The R Topcor’s diaphragm is a manual preset: you set the taking aperture on one ring, focus at full aperture, and turn a second ring to stop down before the exposure. There is nothing in the mount for the body to work, so it behaves the same on every Topcon focal-plane body. On the R, RII, RIII and RS you meter with a hand-held or clip-on meter. On the RE Super, Super D, Super DM and RE-2, the TTL meter reads with the lens stopped down by hand; Paillard describes the lens as “designed for stop-down exposure measurement”. The RE200 and RE300 of 1977–78 share the RE mount; their instruction book gives stop-down metering for the preset R Topcor 300mm f/2.8 but does not list this preset lens. The RE Auto-Topcor has a diaphragm that the body closes at the moment of exposure and a coupling to the RE bodies’ through-the-lens meter, so on the RE Super, RE-2, Super D and Super DM you focus and meter at full aperture, and the RE200 and RE300 book lists it with full-aperture metering. The Automatic R (RII), RIII and RS have the body lever that closes an automatic diaphragm but no through-the-lens meter, so the RE Auto’s meter coupling does nothing there; no source describes it on them specifically. The original Topcon R has no diaphragm mechanism in the body: the RE Auto fits it, but no source says how its diaphragm would be closed there.

The mount is Topcon’s RE bayonet, the Exakta bayonet as Tokyo Kogaku modified it. The French Maxifiche calls the R’s mount a fully compatible Exakta bayonet and says Exakta preset lenses mount on Topcons without trouble. Topcon Club warns that lenses with an external preset arm do not work across the two makes, because Topcon put its release on the other side. The R Topcor has no arm, but no source describes it on an Ihagee Exakta, and no source says whether the RE Auto’s diaphragm works on one. Neither version fits the leaf-shutter Topcons (PR, Wink Mirror, Uni, Unirex, IC-1), whose UV-mount lenses are a separate system.

When buying, first make sure which version it is. The R Topcor has two diaphragm rings and reads R.Topcor; the RE Auto has one aperture ring, no preset ring, and reads RE Auto-Topcor. Many sellers write just “Topcon 300mm f5.6”, and most such listings are the commoner preset lens. Make sure the listing is the f/5.6 at all: the f/2.8 is a different lens, listed by Paillard at US$904.40 against US$269.25 and weighing more than four times as much. Kamerastore listed an R Topcor at €159 in December 2025 (a dealer price, graded Rescue, against €299 on its general page for the lens), and that copy’s focus stopped a tiny bit short of infinity. That is the first thing to check on either version, along with haze or scratches on the rear element and whether the hood slides freely and stays put. On the R Topcor, check that the preset ring clicks at each stop and that the second ring closes the blades to the preset value and no further. On the RE Auto, work the diaphragm lever at the mount and check that the blades close to the set aperture and spring back open at once. A complete outfit has the leather case that Paillard listed with each version.

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This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

More sample photos elsewhere

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Sample photo wanted — shot with a R Topcor and RE Auto-Topcor 300mm f/5.6? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $280 across 5 fixed-price listings on 2026-11-10 (middle half $180–$350). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Listings updated 2026-11-10. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Sources (10)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.